Graduating
by Welch's-Grapejuice
Summary: Graduation is dressing up in semi formal robes and accepting your diploma. Graduating is walking away with everything you earned; even if you didn't earn it until the last forty five minutes. Implied DM/HP. Oneshot. Mild angst. Mostly fluff. Draco's POV.


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"**People don't change until they're presented a reason." –A. Russell**

**;)**

I couldn't say that I found a graduation to be tasteful in the wake of a war. The Great Hall had been restored to its elegant beauty, but the rest remained in ruins. I would have rather taken my diploma and walked out on the most painstaking reminder of memories begging to be hidden.

But now that I was here, I dared once more to take a final look at my childhood.

The Slytherin common rooms were untouched. Colder, but the same. The Quidditch pitch was nothing more than a dug-up field. I couldn't even find half my classrooms through the rubble. I made one final stop on my way to the Great Hall.

The entryway staircase. This was the first room I had stepped foot in; my first impression of what would be my home for ten months of a year. I found what I expected. Tarnished gold, chipped stairs, and broken stones. But I found something else, too. Half a flight of stairs below me was the unmistakably chaotic hair of Harry Potter. His cap was lying beside him, and his head was resting on his knees. The way his shoulders shook gave him the impression that he was crying. I tried to turn away, but a stone gave way beneath my feet and tumbled in the dramatic silence.

Harry jumped and looked over his shoulder. The candle light that glimmered off his face removed any doubts that he had been crying. But as soon as he saw me, he turned his back, and I saw him rub furiously at his cheeks. I knew that this was my chance to escape. He wasn't talking to me, not even to make some snide remark.

Maybe that was why my traitorous feet carried me ten steps down to stand above him. Harry didn't look up.

"Not now," he whispered. It sounded like a plea, and made me uncomfortable, as though he thought I'd so blatantly lash out at him on such horrible terms. And it was strange to see him so broken. He looked more confident when he was lying on the grass at Voldemort's feet.

I took two steps down and sat beside him. He hid his face farther into his knees and wrapped his arms around them to hide his face.

And now that I was here, I had no idea what to say. I removed my cap and carefully, deliberately, placed it on my knees and ran my fingers through my green and black tassel. I wracked my mind for something, anything, to say now that I was trapped on these crumbling steps.

"Thank you," I decided.

There was a pause, and then a muffled, "What?"

"You came back for me in the Room of Requirements," I said. "You know…. Thanks for that. It was partially my fault that it started burning down in the first place…. Well, not really. Only a dolt would realize that place was kindling."

Harry paused again, but he moved a little to place his chin on his arms. His glasses were gone, and I could see how red the corners of his eyes were. He'd been crying for a while.

"Is that all you came here to say?" he asked with a guarded expression.

"No," I said. "I didn't come looking for you. We just happened to turn up in the same place and I saw you and…."

Harry nodded. "Well, thanks. You don't have to stick around."

"I don't have to do anything," I said. Malfoy motto. "I stayed because it was my idea."

"Oh." Harry pulled off what resembled a smile, but it was shaky. "Well, I appreciate that, but I'm kind of a mess right now if you hadn't noticed."

"I noticed."

Harry rested his head against his arms, but not to hide. He just looked tired.

"Why are you here?" I asked curiously.

"Ron's acting like troll snot."

His honesty took me aback.

"I've been telling you that for seven years," I told him. "All the Weasleys' are."

"What about the Malfoys'?"

_Touché_.

"What did the Weasel do this time?"

His head twisted back and forth against his knees. "You wouldn't care."

"Try me."

"I told him I was gay. He told me to go to hell."

I couldn't say I saw that one coming. I'd sometimes suspected it, but always gave myself reasons to think differently. Harry laughed at my face, which I quickly fixed to appear unfathomable.

"Great," he said. "Now you know, too. How long do you think it will take for the whole school to know? Unless they do already."

"I didn't," I said. Technically. "And I'm walking with the school's unofficial gossip columnist."

Harry snorted. "Great. At least Parkinson doesn't know. Maybe graduation won't be as awful as I thought."

"I don't know," I said. "We walk in forty minutes and you're a bigger wreck than the castle. People might stare."

His silence made me feel a little guilty for the joke. Joking wasn't usually my thing—but now I had to at least say _something_ so I didn't come off as a complete prat, after everything.

"This is where we first met," I remarked, glancing around. "I offered to be your friend, told you that Weasley wasn't worth the lint on his sweater, or something to that effect. It's kind of funny, to think we started and ended on these stairs."

The thrown-together sentiment impressed even myself. Harry laughed and rubbed his nose against the sleeves of his robes.

"We didn't meet here."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Did I see you on the train?"

"No," said Harry. "Well, maybe. But we met in Madame Malkin's Robe Shop."

"Oh."

Now I felt uncomfortable. Not only had my story be tarnished, but I also didn't _remember_ meeting him in the robe shop. I stopped to think. Maybe it was memory, or maybe it was creativity, but I could just about see him standing next to me in his oversized clothes and crooked glasses. And then I knew I remembered, because it had been the first time I'd noticed how solid of a green his eyes were. They weren't that murky, kind-of-brown color. The last night I'd thought about them was when he'd turned my hand away almost seven years ago.

"I wonder what would have happened," he said, voicing my thoughts. "You know, if maybe it had turned out a little bit different. If I'd shared a compartment with you. If maybe I hadn't been so stupid to turn you away. Hell, maybe I wouldn't be sitting here right now."

And I asked myself the same question. Would we have grown up together? Sent letters all summer? Snuck out early in the morning to play Quidditch? Stayed up in Slytherin Common Room laughing about something stupid Weasley did? Would he have been a Slytherin at all? Had he been given a choice, like I had?

No matter how much I wondered, those questions would never be answered. But there were other questions. What if all those moments could still happen? Staying up late, laughing about something stupid Weasley did? Playing Quidditch before the sun rose? Sending letters all summer? Growing up together? Surely this wasn't the end of our growing. I only just started making decisions for myself. It couldn't be too late to start over.

Over the years, I'd had many opportunities to start over, to separate myself from my parents. But each time I'd built up the passion to run, something had held me back. I'd been storing my courage. All those seconds, all those moments when I could have spoken, were pulled from their buried depths as I stood, faced him, and stuck out my hand.

"If you don't take my hand this time," I said, "I will have to slap you with it."

Harry surprised face turned into a snort of laughter. He bit his lip, but hesitantly slid his tear-stained fingers into my hand. With a bit of stumbling on both our halves, I was able to pull him to his feet. And now that we standing face to face, I noticed his eyes again. Even though they were rimmed with pink, his irises weren't any duller in green than they had been when we were younger. If anything, the candle light shimmering off his tears made them brighter.

I became acutely aware that I was still holding his hand and prepared to jerk away, but then it occurred to me that he hadn't let go either. Maybe my registered confusion showed on my face, because he glanced at our hands and, with an expression of shyness I'd never seen on his always-confident face, let go.

"Thank you," he said. "Slapping me won't be necessary. You'll just get your fingers sticky."

"Want me to walk with you to the bathroom so you can wash up a little?" I said. "There's time."

"It's okay," said Harry. "I'll be fine on my own…. But do you want to walk with me at graduation?"

"You don't have a partner yet?"

"I do," said Harry. "But I kind want to avoid him for a while."

_Weasley_, I realized. _Duh. Of course they'd make arrangements to walk together. But I already have Pansy…. Pansy or Potter?_

"Sure," I responded immediately. "I guess it'll be like walking up to the sorting hat all over again, only you're actually making a better choice of who to walk with."

Harry laughed. I noticed that for someone so upset, he'd been doing that a lot. It inflated my ego more than it probably should have.

"Who knew you were one with words," said Harry. "I mean, I always knew you had a colorful vocabulary and all, but still. Hey, I'm going to go get dry. Can I meet you by the doors to the Great Hall before we start lining up?"

"Yeah," I said. And towards his retreating back, asked, "Wait, how are we going to walk? Hold hands? Link arms? Stand at arm's reach away?"

Again, Harry laughed. "I'll hold your hand. Then we can squeeze each other's in warning if something about be thrown at our heads."

I grinned as he disappeared up the stairs, because I was quite certain he knew that he knew Weasley wouldn't pull a stunt like that in a crowd. Whistling merrily, I left to tell Pansy who her new partner would be.

I let go of Harry's hand twice. Once to sing our anthem, and once to walk across the stage and grab my diploma. Other than those moments, we held on tightly. His grip was especially rough when we bowed our heads in memory of the people who died for the war. My parents noticed from the stands; I knew from the scornful gazes they short towards Harry.

But I didn't mind, because while I droned out Hermione Granger's speech, I came to a final resolution of my own. There was a difference between graduation and graduating. Graduation was getting dressed up in semi-formal clothing covered by zip-up robes and walking across a stage to have your tassel turned from one side of your cap to the other. Graduating was taking your diploma and walking away with everything you earned.

Even if you didn't earn it until the last forty five minutes.


End file.
